George Orwell's 1984 was published. Orwell died of tuberculosis not long after2, missing the opportunity to see many of his dystopian visions of surveillance become quite close to reality in recent years.
Libraries have always worked to shield the intellectual freedom and privacy of their patrons from the prying eyes of "Big Brother."

August 25: RCA introduced its system for color television broadcasting. After a couple years of litigation, the system of rival CBS was adopted in the summer of 1951. Well over 10 million Americans had a TV set at home by that time.3

References:
1. Sixtieth Annual Report of the Board of Free Public Library Commissioners for the Year Ending June 30, 1949.
2. www.bbc.co.uk [link].
3. Color television - Wikipedia entry [link].

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